The town of Brightcreek has had a bad couple of years. First, the Mere of Dead Men up north grows dark, deadly, and nigh impassible to traveling merchants. This by itself is bad news, to a town whose main draw is being between Neverwinter and Waterdeep. When the road between them is disrupted by undead and shadows and crazy druids and who knows what else, visitors and merchants are few and far between. Now, just as things started to calm down, when things started to look like they might go back to normal, now suddenly the other side of the coin is in trouble. Waterdeep has gone crazy, with an ominous blood red sky to the south and refugees fleeing to the north rambling of devil armies and planetar and dark elves and other sorts of crazy nonsense.

But the red sky has calmed to the more typical dull grey of the Sword Coast, and the refugees have trickled to a halt. Many of them have even tentatively left to see to the state of their homes. Maybe things will actually just be all right now?

...

Wait. No. Actually, things will not just be all right now. Instead, a cult that worships a demon steals a girl in the middle of the night, and announces that all who do not bow before their demonic master will suffer unimaginable torment for all eternity, all who oppose them shall suffer even more unimaginable torment, etc. A portal to the Abyss will be opened, and their master will surge forth, there is no hero that could possibly stop their all mighty master, surely.

He understands their complaints, really, but have they considered that he is a ludicrously experienced teleporting shadow master? Because they really should consider that.

The shitty swords do not get to go to his squishy organmeats, he needs those. He's not going to be anywhere where the swords will meet his squishy organmeats. The fire and acid are easily dodged, the lighting manages to zap him (he's not actually fast enough to dodge lightning) but he has dealt with much worse things. He can grit his teeth and carry on. Wizards get to experience his counterargument: his much less shitty sword, to their squishy organmeats. From behind, because he shadowstepped there.

(He is not using Ex-Enserric with these people; they're obviously terrible, but they're not the 'my soul deserves to be eaten' levels of terrible that call for the soul eating sword. He uses the creatively named frost sword, Frostbite. He is not responsible for the name, he's sorry. Devils have terrible senses of humor.)

Yep. It's a pretty one sided fight. Soon enough all of the cultists are dead or unconscious. He ties up the ones who are unconscious with the efficiency of someone who has done this kind of thing a lot.

Once he's done with that, he returns to the girl, sword returned to its sheath.

"Hey," he says, gently. He motions next to where she's sitting. "May I?"

An eight-year-old shouldn't drink a full adult sized healing potion, but he has a spare clean vial or two. He can just carefully pour half of one into another vial for later, dilute what's left with water from his canteen so it'll taste a bit less awful, and offer her the concoction.

He produces a handkerchief from his bag of holding and quietly offers it over. Should she turn out to need it. It is soft and silky and a strange shade of purple. He'd offer to hug her, but he thinks that offering right now might make her think that she has to in order to be safe. A handkerchief is much less able to leverage her in some way.

"So if it's all right with you, I'm going to find you some place better to stay. Some place that's, uh. Not there, and not with them."

"You're welcome." He notices the look. "Uh - handkerchief. In case of runny noses, bits of dirt or liquids on you that you don't want, that sort of thing. Made to get messy so you're not. You don't have to use it if you'd rather not."

"They're sneaky things, sometimes. Show up out of nowhere and ambush unsuspecting citizens, and suddenly there's snot everywhere. I like to be prepared. But it's fine, you don't have to keep it if you'd rather not."

He's making such a hash of this. Ilmater, have mercy on him, he doesn't know how to succinctly get across to an eight-year-old that he just wants the best for her and doesn't want to scare her.

Soup or stew would probably be better for her, or at least better tasting, but they take more time to make than he really has available right now. The foodstuff that doesn't require the time investment is a bit bland, but he was just in town. It isn't stale or unpalatable, or anything. She can have banana bread, dried fruit, a bit of jerky, and water. It is probably much better than whatever the cultists were giving her.